While playing Elder Scrolls Online recently I had a bit of a dilemma over my solo character’s race. He’s my Argonian Dragonknight character, an unwitting clone perhaps of my EQ2 Sarnak Shadowknight.

Playing through a major Deshaan quest chain set within the Ebonheart Pact capital city of Mournhold, I was struck by the fact that I probably would prefer to be playing a Dunmer character as my (solo) main, especially because the upcoming expansion for the game is set in Morrowind. I should mention that I do really like Argonians as a race, but still he’s not a Dunmer. I created the character without much thought when I returned to the game, and obviously before I knew there would be a Dunmer-themed expansion coming.

Bit pricey for me atm…

Race change options in MMOs are one of the ‘premium’ services that MMO studios like to charge extra for – quite a chunk of money at £14.99 for the necessary 3000 crowns (Currently it costs £19 in WoW). I’m not a fan of these extras that are charged in real money; whether server transfers, race changes, character make-overs or whatever. It always struck me as somewhat exploitative, especially in games with a sub that the studio would charge players for something that should be included. I’ve only ever server swapped in Rift as Trion made a point of not charging extra for such services. I did once pay for a race change in World of Warcraft, back in the Wrath era, because we needed a healer for our nascent Horde mirror-guild.

This Troll Priest started life as a Draenei

I could create a new Dunmer character and get that caught up with my Dragonknight, either as a direct replacement or a chance to try one of the two classes I’ve not yet played (Sorceror or Nightblade). But do I really want to re-roll when that means winding back on progress and repeating what I’ve already done, I’m not normally one for repeating content so soon…

ESO does hold crown sales fairly regularly, so if you want to race change, maybe wait for the next sale.

Also, while I’m not entirely an expert on Elder Scrolls lore or what the expansion will entail, I get the impression there’s going to be a decent amount of Argonian content, so changing race may not be that essential. At the very least, there is a zone in the base game that’s pretty much all Argonians, all the time.

Despite this posting being here for a few days and me having pondered it a little bit, i just don’t really see reason for this. Just because the new content is based around one races territory makes you want to change your race?

I am rather sure that the new expansion will be explorable with any character, i doubt that being Dunmer is of any importance. I mean even now my character, no matter which faction, can go to the other factions areas and freely do missions and everything there. The only limitation is the PvP area.

Thus it boils down to this: how well do you feel with your character and its race? If it feels fine, stick with it. I mean hey, people even play Argonians and Kajiit. I couldn’t get myself to do that. It’s not because i dislike non-human races, but because most MMOs do them so badly. (*)

As long as your Argonian character feels good for you, continue playing it. If you feel that you really want another race, consider rerolling. But also, for good measure, at least consider to also try another class. After all, if you level again, why not take a look at the other things out there? Perhaps they’re even more fun than you expected. If they don’t feel like fun within the first five to ten levels, reroll again. You then haven’t lost too much time but learned more about the game and its options.

*This is getting off topic, but still i’d like to explain why i can’t handle those races: They generally are humans with animal heads and a tail. Then you pack on heavy armour and it looks like a human, except for the non-armoured tail sticking out of the armour and looking very bad. Mind you, i love my Charr in GW2. Even there a lot of armour has clipping issues, but at least there’s also racial armour which not only has an appropriate tail-opening but in some cases even includes tail-protection.

I felt as I played through the Dunmer-heavy storylines in Stonefalls/Deshaan that I wanted a Dunmer character to be immersed in those stories from an inside perspective. The Argonian former-subject race angle is also interesting but for a first playthrough I found myself wanting something else.